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There you go kids - Big Top’s back. oh wait, no it’s not

Perhaps the crystal ball shall reveal a date and time?

I think the scariest attraction is going to be leaving the car park at the end of the night. The amount if time it takes to leave is honestly frightening!

“Our most intense maze ever” Man, I genuinely cannot wait to see what the vloggers such as Park Pixie, Coaster Click and Backseat Boiiii have to say about this, sounds as if they’re gonna have a field day over it!

Gassed to hear Silkbrooke is back on the island like no other for a hot minute from #monkswalk for some sick visuals. Also did someone mention the nurses again?

It's ya gal Park Pixie back on the island like no other

So the new maze will be the scariest yet? This coming from the people who said that Fright Nights last year was going to be the best one to date - and that was a shower of s%#^ Honestly not hyped in the slightest for Fright Nights - my pass expires in 3 weeks and it’s doubtful I will renew this year. As for chainsaws being scary - I used to love them - would walk slowly towards the end of Asylum but then a couple of years later I ran into some crazed actor with a chainsaw on Big Top and it’s scarred me for life. I literally screamed my way through Chop Shop last year and the year before that at Scare Fest I ran out of Sub Species, burst into tears then had an asthma attack followed by a panic attack 🤣 - I can laugh about it now but it scared the poop out of me at the time

Massive part of why Shocktoberfest leads the way in this country as far as I go and that’s without even touching the attractions. Those nurses!! 😍😍 Hell park wide atmosphere and decoration is also something I hope Thorpe improve on as back in the glory days of this event, it excelled in that department.

Honestly I would pay 15 pounds for the street at Tulleys, the street actors there are literally hilarious! You could easily spend the night just soaking in the atmosphere.

ITS COMING BACK OK!! *cries in a corner after reality sets in My “sources” let me down!!

bUT wWTP, wE mIGHt sTiLL gET A sURpRiSe aNnOuNcEmEnT

Do people still find chainsaws scary? I feel they are a bit overused in these events and I’ve become a bit immune to it. Just wondering whether it still has the scare factor like it used to when the asylum was one of the only ones who used chainsaws

Well I was partly right....

‘Most intense maze ever’. Lol jokes aside it looks like it has potential... just have to wait and see.

Oooh Thorpe you little tease - chainsaws to throw us off the scent when we all know Big Top is back. jOKeS aside - Wonder how chop-shopy the promo is going to be?

Announcement tomorrow!

13th is doable, work every Saturday and getting to Thorpe would be nightmarish after work on a Sat

Welcome to the forum, would be great to have you at the meet Any questions please feel free to PM myself or any of the team!

Ah Josh, the Top has been Bigged. Platform has been 15’d and we did what we did and were very proud of it. They’ll be fine...

It's not the price, it's the principle of paying for the MAP and then not being able to utilise the perks. With Tulleys you get what you pay for, it's excellent.

Hopefully Thorpe will buy the bell ride.

Oh joyous! Why do they big up such non-events/experiences/attractions so much to be something they're not? Couldn't they have released a special popbadge or something?

Asylum/Freezer was great because it used such a simple design. Strobes, fencing,smoke,sirens. Yet the actors they had in there complimented that loud atmosphere perfectly. I had runs where the actors full on lept over the fences at me and started trying to drag me from the back of the group. They were absolutely crazy in there. It really was and remains to this day the best maze in the history of the event. If this new maze is half the attraction it was then it’s done well.

Unpopular opinion alert! lol. Asylum always used to be the highlight of fright nights for me. Can't believe this is going to be as good but who knows.

Wow, saying it's their "most intense maze to date" is a very bold claim. They're saying it'll be more intense than Asylum and Experiment 10 so naturally expectations will be extremely high now. If it isn't as intense as E10 in its first year (which was insane) it's not good enough now that they have said that. I hope "intense" doesn't just mean more than one chainsaw, I always found the buildup to the final on Asylum worked far better than just throwing in loads of chainsaws Chop-Shop style.

Creek Freak Massacre - Thorpe's take on Chop Shop? I do like the take of the Thorpe soundtrack at the end.

Why are they unpopular opinions? I think most would agree with most of those.

As the sun was setting after a fun day in London, I headed to the Vaults of Waterloo, a place which I have visited before generally for music, however today it would take a more menacing turn of events, the IT experience promoting IT Chapter 2, in cinemas on Friday. When joining the queue down a back alley the suspense was created, with two security guards to greet and a standby line for the peasants who were unable to get free tickets through the eventbrite booking engine, the music however set the scene with a menacing tone. The entrance. 9.30 quickly approached and we entered. Upon signing a waiver which I didn't read, but I guess I was signing my life away and then was given a wristband and lead into an interactive carnival scene. There were tw games hook a duck and pop a balloon. I played hook a duck and was rubbish at it, collecting a measly one duck, however this still gained me entry. The baloon game looked fun however we were ushered on before getting a chance to play. After an actor spiel we were made to walk through the clowns head, into the trommel tunnel and this had some force to it, making me loose my footing few times. The next room contained some UV clown punch bags to play tricks with the mind. We were then greeted with the house from the movie and some characters arguing about not wanting to go inside. After a photo opportunity with the Loser gangs bikes we went through. Thememing wise it was stunning, however some members of the forum would not be impressed as the roof was not themed therefore ruining the 360 immersion effect. From this point on wards no cameras were permitted. We came to three doors, Not scary, Scary and Very Scary. The actor then split us up, I was given the Scary door which was filled with balloons that I had to run through and pop, as the lights went out an actor jumped out to scare me. The other rooms contained a mirror maze and Jack in the box however I didn't get to experience them. Next we were in a Chinese restaurant, not sure what the relevancy was here but I assume its in the new movie. I was thinking great an eating challenge as a lazy Susan and baskets were placed in front of us however all we got was a fortune cookie, my fortune being losers stick together. Inside the basket was an oversized cassette player and headphones, to be worn for the tour of the sewers, as the tones of new kids on the block blared down my ears we met our tour guide and torches were distributed into groups. In the sewers we were taken down many tunnels to a room which reminded me a lot of the middle show of DBGT. In our group the torches started to malfunction, then the boy in the yellow raincoat appeared, and then lights flickered and Pennywise himself appeared, went dark, he appeared closer to the group, that type of ending which we have all experience before, despite tension being high, I found the ending to be quite weak. However one surprise was went placing the cassettes back an actor was in the lockers for one final jump scare. The overall attraction lasted 15mins, short but sweet. I'd rate the attraction a solid 7/10 and I think the likes of TP could learn a lot from it. Overall it was fun, and had some good photo-ops despite being not too scary. I would highly recommend although the attraction closes on Wednesday. A great marketing campaign as I will not go and see the film when it comes out Friday.

They are free to trial things, and we are providing the feedback. There's only a problem with trialling things if they dont listen to feedback. Plus this idea sounds like its such a bad fit that they may as well trial painting Nemesis pink, putting VR on The Blade, getting Durex to sponsor Oblivion, etc It was fine in the past because it was maintained properly in the past. If you remove or don't maintain the lighting that was designed to guide people on cue then they're not going to realise an entrance has opened up, and they don't understand that they're supposed to move forward. If there is a group that still refuses to budge, use a pre-recorded announcement to tell them to move forward. It's really basic operational show stuff, there's not been some kind of cultural shift that means people no longer move through dark rides. It's the same story with all of Merlin's dark rides, bad maintenance. Hex on the whole has seen better days, and people no longer respond to it as well as they used to. It needs a proper refurbishment to get it back to its original standard. The lighting was bodged a fair bit in the TLC redo (people woudlnt have noticed specific changes, but you probably noticed it isn't as dramatic anymore, with lights going up and down at random.. meh). The cinema video needs a technical update too, find an inventive solution to keep the video but make the room more interesting ie Wickerman's preshow. Easy! But it won't happen sadly.

Oh yes - that’s the highlight of the thread.

There have been some whispers lately that apparently Hex has received actors inside the show rooms this summer and I can now confirm this is indeed the case after trying the ride today. But rather than enhance the experience, in my view, this change has bastardised the ride instead. Now, I realise in the past this ride has had actors in the show buildings so this is not a new concept, but the way the actor interacted with the guests was honestly shameful to what the intention and design of this attraction was intended for. Here’s how it went: The cinema room remains the same and everything up until that point was as it typically is, but as soon as the doors opened into the Octagon room, there was an actor with a torch in his hands shining at us telling us to “move along and follow me” obnoxiously loudly. We did so and once we gathered in the room near the TV screens, he started babbling lines about welcoming us to this historic site and that we should be observing all the artefacts around us before the screens started. He even injected some humour into the mix trying not to confuse his co-worker Boris for the PM... (*golf clap*) But anyway, once the video finished and the equipment was malfunctioning, he proceeded to begin shouting “Stay calm ladies and gents! Remain where you are! It’s only a temporary glitch...”. From this point where the strobe lights occurred, he just aimlessly started flashing his torch in our faces, pointing the light randomly with an OTT reaction coupled with screams in sync to the effects used, almost as if this scene is meant to be funny, like a Dungeon scene. Once it all ended, he shouted again at us to proceed up the stairs flashing his light all across the room. At this point I thought ‘okay, now that’s over, we won’t see him again. Right?’ Errrrm no... As we walked up to the vault doors, he then followed us and started talking loudly again saying “You enjoying the tour so far?” with more humorous lines added in such as “We don’t have vault manuals” when there was a delay boarding. Finally, we took our seats and this was the cream of the crop for me. He once again started shouting loudly at everyone telling them to take our seats (talking over the pre-recorded message inside the vault) and once the bars lowered, he stood near the entrance doors shining the torch in his face, and then gave us all a menacing look saying “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the vault, enjoy!” and then walked out with an evil laugh just before the ride began, with the whole room laughing too... and then the rest follows through until the end of the experience. I was just sitting there thinking “the heck?!” the whole time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am perfectly fine with actors having a bit of fun with guests and injecting humour into the mix, as in a lot of cases, it works pretty well - The Dungeons being a good example. But Hex is not meant to be humorous, loud or obnoxious one bit and this change has completely devalued the ride experience in my view. Gone is the quiet, eerie atmosphere inside; gone is the feeling of isolation as you explore the ruins; gone is the feeling of tension; gone (for now) is the ride I love. Instead, we now have a spare actor left behind from Sub Terra/Ghost Train who has learnt how to combine his shouting skills with the accent of an Alton Towers Dungeon performer, who then proceeds to overlay that in three different scenes, eliminating any atmosphere the ride used to have. Nothing against the actor personally, I just feel this is a very bad move by the park and hope the change is gone as soon as possible.

This thread is comedy gold - I’ve just snorted coffee out of my nostrils

Hey at least the latter is likely

Going on quite a few madhouses recently and then back on Hex yesterday reminded me how amazing this ride is. It's the best of its type by a country mile; the atmosphere, story and soundtrack really make it. They seem to have solved the audio issues in the vault, it sounded amazing and at the perfect volume. All other effects seemed to be working minus the mist. People's reactions on the ride yesterday was a magical moment, everyone seemed so amazed; it really is themed entertainment at its best. It's perfect in that it has such a broad appeal and proves that fantastic and unique ideas are what lasts. Absolutely the best dark ride in the UK currently and the last remaining part of "the magic" at Alton. Incredible.

Must resist the urge..must resist the urge..must resist the urge... Nope, can't. Asylum remains the most overrated mazes in the history of Thorpe Park and it wasn't that intense.

Freezer/Asylum: “Am I a joke to you!!??” 😛